PC Software

Welcome to my PC software download page. Here you will find a number of programs that I have written for MS-DOS, Windows and Windows '95. I am currently trying to improve these programs, which although functional aren't necessarily very user-friendly!

I have recently added some useful programs that are not my own work. These are not just links to other sites, I have made these files available on my Web space to ensure availability. There are now quite a few programs included here, with more to follow.

AKStamp Version 1.0 (7.3k)

AKStamp is a program which will change the date/time stamp of a file or more importantly, a number of files.  You can change the stamp on all files in a particular directory for example.  Wildcards are allowed.

AKVolumer Version 1.0 (23k)

AKVolumer is a program which will take a number of files and stick them together into a volume (one large file).  A second program will extract files from the volume.  You might wonder why you would want to do this but there are three very good reasons:

You can create SMALLER ZIP FILES!  By placing your files in a volume BEFORE zipping, the resulting ZIP file will be smaller.
It saves disk allocation units.
Limited file security - you can password protect volumes.

Allcopy Version 1.0 (8.6k)

Allcopy is a program which will copy all the files from one directory to another.  Sounds like the COPY command but this will do hidden and system files.  It should be quicker than DOS 6.x and earlier as well.  Ideal if you want to transfer files to a new hard disk but be aware that it doesn't retain long filenames!

Datefix 2000 (113k)

Datefix 2000 is a work-around to allow PCs with old BIOS chips to handle dates after the year 2000.  It consists of two DOS programs and one Windows program which can be used to fully automate the process.

DiskBench! (9.4k)

DiskBench is a disk benchmarking utility which will work with any disk (even floppies etc..)  Unlike most disk benchmarking utilities, this one is consistently accurate producing the same result for each drive.  Its output tells you the transfer rate of the drive, the time it took to write 512k and gives a Diskbench! index based on these values.  You can use it as a real comparison to see how much faster one drive is than another.  The results even change as the drive fills up so you can see how the performance of your drive drops off in real life operation.

DOSCPU (12k)

DOSCPU is a program (for DOS!) that will run a series of tests on your processor and report its speed.  It is not dependant on other components of your machine except cache and should give an accurate value for the speed of your processor.

Examine (13.6k)

Examine is a very simple file editor for DOS. It is a bit like a hex editor but there isn't a hex digit in sight! It allows you to edit individual bytes/characters of any file, view a file and search for text in it.

FASTFIND (13.8k)

Fastfind is an advanced file and directory locator, with string search and directory recursion capabilities. You can also specify file attributes, sizes and dates as part of your search criteria. This is one of my better programs and ideal for those who aren't running Windows 95 and don't have the cool file finder that comes with it. This version is a DOS program and almost as quick as Windows 95 find when searching for strings inside files.

Font Manager 32 (7.4k)

Font Manager 32 is a Windows '95 program that allows you to add or remove Windows fonts so that you need not have them permanently installed.  They will be available for use during your current Windows session but will not remain permanently installed.

GBench (24.7k)

GBench is a graphics card benchmarking utility which is useful for comparing the speed of your graphics card with other makes. You can also use it to determine if your graphics card is a performance bottleneck in your system.

Logcomp (10k)

Logcomp is a program for logging to a file the complete contents of a directory. You can then use it to compare one log with another. This is useful if, for example, you want to manually see what files have been added to your Windows directory after a program has been installed. It will also compare logs for files of different sizes or dates.

SEAL Module Player V1.1 (153k)

SEAL Module Player is a 32-bit music module player for Windows 95/NT. This is my enhanced version of the original program by Carlos Hasan. The program can play 3 different MOD formats: MOD, S3M and XM. Download a nice little module (28.3k) to try out on it.

ShortName (5k)

SName is a Windows 95 program which can be used to shorten 8.3 filenames so that they only occupy one FAT entry.  Windows 95 makes multiple hidden FAT entries in order to store long filenames.  A short name with mixed case is also a long filename and occupies more than one FAT entry.  For example "TeSt.TxT" would require two FAT entries - one to store the DOS entry "TEST.TXT" and one to store the Windows 95 mixed case entry "TeSt.TxT".  SName shortens names like "TeSt.TxT" by capitalising the name and re-naming it so that it only occupies ONE FAT entry.  This speeds up disk navigation as it effectively makes the FAT smaller.

Speed (16.6K)

Speed is a 16-bit Windows program which measures the performance of your CPU. It's reasonably consistent, usually producing one of a couple of values, but cannot match my DOS program, DOSCPU.

Sys-Menu (18k)

Sys-Menu is a simple DOS program for making menus. You might wish to do this if you don't use DOS much but run games or old applications under DOS or in MS-DOS mode. Using Sys-Menu and a few batch files (examples included) you can make menus for quickly launching your favourite games and programs.

Testdisk! (8k)

Testdisk is a program rather like Scandisk which checks the integrity of a disk.  It only works with blank formatted disks in drive A and will only work correctly in MS-DOS mode.  Sometimes Windows 95 is too tolerant when formatting a disk and marks out bad sectors as OK.  You can use Testdisk to ensure that your disk is 100% OK.  It is faster than Scandisk (50 secs compared to about 4 minutes for a surface scan).

VGA (3k)

This simple program allows you to switch your DOS session screen mode between VGA and regular 80-column text mode. Any sane person might wonder why you want to do this, but there is a reason: S3's new drivers for the ViRGE/DX card do something very strange, which means that (on my PC at least) 320x240 VESA modes cannot display. This only happens in Windows, so it's definitely the new Windows drivers. I assume some register or something isn't being reset. The only way I can get my VESA mode programs to work is to switch to 320x200 VGA mode first! This is what this little program does.

 

Other Programs

Here are one or two other programs (by other people) that I find handy from time to time.

Cachechk V6 (50.3k)

Cachechk is a program which checks for the presence of level 1 (on-chip) and level 2 (external) caches. It tells you how much cache memory you have installed and how fast the caches are. It also times reading and writing of data to main memory and tells you how fast it and your processor are.

CPUIdle 2.53 (207k)

CPUIdle is an absolutely amazing utility from a Windows 95 user's point of view. What it basically does, is make your CPU to run a LOT cooler than it would under normal circumstances. It achieves this by executing an HLT instruction in an idle thread. This might not make much sense, but what it does is puts the CPU into a suspended state when there's nothing else going on. It does NOT adversly effect system performance. Other operating systems such as Linux, OS/2 and NT have this facility built in, but Windows 95/98 doesn't. The archive includes a Windows 95 native version and a DOS version, both especially essential for overclockers!

CTCM (37k)

This program is very similar to Cachechk above, only it takes no time to run. It tells you how fast your memory is and what caches are present. It also returns the CPU signature and what type/speed it is.

Cyrix 6x86 (M1) Utils (13.2k)

Two useful programs for the Cyrix M1 series of Pentium-compatible processors. The first (6x86opt.exe) optimises your processor, enabling all caches etc.. If your chip is already optimised, this may have no difference on performance. The second program (cpuiden.exe) enables the CPU ID instruction on the chip so that it is reported as a Pentium. If you place this in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, Windows reports a Pentium and not an 80486. Running the program again disables this instruction.

GSpeed (17.6k)

GSpeed is a good graphics card benchmarker which tests your card in graphics mode. It tells you how many million pixels per second your card can manage. It is reasonably unaffected by CPU speed except that since installing an Intel P200 MMX CPU, my million pixels per second has decreased from 20.4 (with Cyrix P150/P166) to 18. Usually this sort of thing doesn't happen and I put it down to architectural differences in the two processors. Whilst the Intel is a little quicker overall, certain algorithms (including ones I have written myself) do execute more quickly on the Cyrix chip.

KSpeed4 (20k)

KSpeed4 is a very good CPU/graphics benchmarker. It takes into account the speed of your processor and graphics card when determining the performance of your PC. I find it useful for showing up graphics cards which slow up your whole system - usually ones that require an IRQ. It also tests hard disk speeds, but is not so accurate at this.

MCLK (118k)

MCLK is an excellent program for overclocking your graphics card. It works with a number of popular chipsets including S3 (Trio, Virge, Virge DX etc...), Cirrus Logic (5436/46, 5429 etc...), Trident, Tseng Labs and Maxtrox (Mystique). The greatest benefits are seen with cards using a generic chipset, since these are often manufactured well within the tolerance of their circuitry. On my ViRGE/DX, I see a 15% performance increase without any adverse effects.

Slow (0.5k)

Slow is a TSR DOS program which can be used to slow your PC down. It is quite handy for playing old games that run far too quickly.

Win95Ver (21k)

This is a useful utility to report which version of Windows 95 you are running. It can distinguish between 7 different versions of Windows 95 and also recognises Windows 98 and NT.

ZipZap Sector Editor (48k)

This is a rather good disk sector editor for DOS. It allows you to edit any data on a disk. Unfortunately it is an old-ish program (1990) and wasn't designed to be used with large hard disks. The "Goto Sector" feature won't goto sectors after 30Mb although you can manually scroll there if you wish. It is however, brilliant for editing floppy disks and will also work as a conventional hex editor for files.

This page hosted by Get your own free Home Page